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VCT 2022 Stage 2 Challengers NA and EMEA: Preview and main storylines

Fight for a Copenhagen trip to compete in the second international VALORANT  event of 2022 continues! The second stage... Daria Belous | 16. June 2022

Fight for a Copenhagen trip to compete in the second international VALORANT  event of 2022 continues! The second stage of the 2022 VALORANT Champions Tour is nearing the end as the playoff phase of the regional VCT Challenger series will start soon for all competitive regions.

The VCT Challengers playoff format is the same for all regions — teams will fight each other in double-elimination brackets. Here’s the tournament preview for EMEA and NA regions, including highlights and main team storylines of the event.

VCT 2022 Stage 2 Challengers NA preview: all eyes on OpTic Gaming

The North American VCT Challengers playoffs start today, June 16. The event will see eight squads will fighting for two slots at the Masters event in Copenhagen, Denmark. The qualified teams are XSET, Ghost Gaming, 100Thieves, NRG, FaZe Clan, OpTic Gaming, Luminosity Gaming and Evil Geniuses. 

The former esports titans as Cloud9 and Sentinels, who dominated the North American region for the whole of 2021, were eliminated from the competition a week before the finals.

During the playoffs, all eyes will be on XSET and OpTic Gaming who were the winners in their groups. OpTic Gaming will likely feel twice as big pressure, as they will be defeating their Champions title from Reykjavík. 

The first playoff match will be between FaZe Clan and 100 Thieves is set to take place on June 16 at 4:00 a.m. GMT+8. The second match in the upper bracket between Ghost Gaming and Evil Geniuses will happen at 7:00 a.m. GMT+8. As always, fans can watch the competition on Valorant Esports’ official channels. 

VCT 2022 Stage 2 Challengers EMEA preview: Fnatic are undefeated 

EMEA will enter the playoff competition on June 17 and will see six squads fight for three slots at the following LAN event. We’ll see a performance of Fnatic, Acend, FunPlus Phoenix, Guild Esports, M3 Champions and Team Liquid. We should also note that although there are fewer teams in EMEA than in NA series, Europe got one more slot for Masters in Copenhagen. 

As for the lineups, Fnatic ended the Group Stage undefeated by winning five matches in a row. The team is definitely prepared for the competition compared to their last performance in Reykjavik, where they finished at the 11th-12th place.

Another favourite of the competition is Guild Esports owned by former professional footballer David Beckham. The team finished the Group Stage with a 4:1 score and became the top team in their group. 

The VCT EMEA Stage 2 playoff matches start on July 17 with Acend and M3 Champions opening the competition in the upper bracket at 5 pm EEST. The second match of the day will be held at 8 pm EEST and feature Team Liquid vs. FunPlus Phoenix.   

Image credit: VALORANT Esports